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Inspiration

Monica Lewinsky on the Price of Shaming

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Monica Lewinsky TED Talk

Recently, Monica Lewinsky spoke on the TED stage about the issue of shaming and cyberbullying. During her talk, Lewinsky describes herself as “a woman who was publicly silenced for a decade.” With this TED talk, Lewinsky is breaking her silence and telling the world why they need to listen. Lewinsky begins, “At the age of 22, I fell in love with my boss. And at the age of 24, I learned the devastating consequences.” Aware of the awkwardness in the room, Lewinsky cuts the tension and asks her audience members, “Can I see a show of hands of anyone here who didn’t make a mistake or do something that they regretted at 22?” When the hands fail to rise, Lewinsky continues, “Like me, at 22, a few of you may also have taken wrong turns by falling in love with the wrong person- maybe even your boss. Unlike me, though, your boss probably wasn’t the President of the United States of America.”

Lewinsky then proceeds to the topic of her talk, stating, “In 1998, after having been swept up into an improbable romance, I was then swept up into the eye of a political, legal, and media maelstrom like we have never seen before.” Lewinsky explains that when the Internet broke the news of the scandal, she transformed overnight “from being a completely private figure, to a publicly humiliated one worldwide.”  Lewinsky states, “I was patient zero of losing a personal reputation on a global scale almost instantaneously.”

Lewinsky explains in her talk how she was humiliated, shamed, and dehumanized by the media and by the American public in a way that had never been done before. Lewinsky states, “When this happened to me seventeen years ago, there was no name for it. Now we call it cyberbullying and online harassment.” Using her own personal experience with harassment and the stories of many others, Lewinsky explains, “Everyday online, people- especially young people who are not developmentally equipped to handle this- are so abused and humiliated that they can’t imagine living to the next day.” Lewinsky states, “Cruelty to others is nothing new, but online technologically enhanced shaming is amplified, uncontained, and permanently accessible.”

Lewinsky warns, “For nearly two decades now, we have slowly been sowing the seeds of shame and public humiliation in our cultural soil- both on and offline.” She continues, “It’s led to desensitization and a permissive environment online, which lends itself to trolling, invasion of privacy, and cyberbullying.” Lewinsky discusses the impact this has had, stating, “A market place has emerged, where public humiliation is a commodity and shame is an industry.” Lewinsky explains the “dangerous cycle” that we are trapped in by advertisers, gossip magazines, and other entertainment outlets, revealing, “the more we click on this type of gossip, the more numb we get to the human lives behind it. And the more numb we get, the more we click.” Lewinsky informs her audience on how to combat this cycle, pointing out that “every click is a choice.”

Lewinsky calls for a cultural revolution, one in which compassion overrules shaming. Lewinsky suggests that this revolution needs “upstander empathy”, an empathy that can be achieved by posting positive rather than negative comments and reporting all accounts of cyberbullying. Lewinsky concludes, “We need to communicate online with compassion, consume news with compassion, and click with compassion.”

Do you agree with Monica’s desire for an end to public shaming as a “blood sport”?

How do you encourage others to act with compassion on and offline?  Share with us in the comments section below!

Watch her full TEDTalk below!

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